Expanded Traits Tables
Player choice is one of the foundational strengths of any RPG, but sometimes, it can be more fun to not choose. Sometimes, it's more exciting to let the dice decide for us. With this new array of tables, you can not choose between nearly every race published so far, or pick a subgroup if you only want a little chaos. Let us know how you like them, and tell us what other supplements like these you'd like to see next. There are many more sorts of tables we could produce, so let us know what you'd use, and we'll make another set of tables soon!
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Expanded Trait Tables
The Player's Handbook and various other places in D&D 5e have tables where you can randomly determine elements of a character’s traits, such as age and species. These tables are useful in theory, but often only cover a limited range of options and as a result quickly lead to similar characters when used repeatedly, be they used for NPCs or players.
This document is an effort to provide a more robust series of random tables for things like race, age, alignment, and even elements relating to gender and sexuality. These tables are designed to be used collectively for generating NPCs or Player Character traits, but each one can be used individually as well - and as with all character tables, you’re encouraged to reroll if you don’t get a result you’re fond of - or simply choose one of the possible outcomes, if any at all.
Racial Tables
The racial tables found in the Player’s Handbook attached to the Resurrection spell and in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything intended for generating character traits randomly both have one glaring flaw; they only cover a smattering of the many and varied races one might have access to. To rectify this, a series of simple tables containing every officially published race is listed across the following pages. These tables are adjustable in that if you wish to add or remove races to them, you need only nudge the numbers up and down accordingly in a way appropriate for your setting. Similarly, if an existent race is more or less common than presumed in these tables, you can adjust those values as well for your own purposes.
Use of the racial random tables is broken down into two steps; first, you roll a d100 to determine the rarity of your randomly decided race. Then, you roll on the resultant table to determine race (and subrace, if applicable). This two-tiered system allows for groups of races to be more common than others without cramming every single option onto a single d100 table, and creates more nuance. For example, gnomes are uncommon, but within the context of being uncommon, one is more likely to be a gnome of some kind than, say, a tiefling of any sort.
What Each Category Means
Each table assumes a few things about the races that are on it.
Common. Common is exactly what it sounds like. The most populous and socially powerful races for a given world fall into this category - humans are a given here for most settings, along with dwarves, elves, and halflings.
Uncommon. Uncommon races are those that for some reason do not have a significant enough population to be a regular sight, but are far from noteworthy in well populated areas. Dragonborn, tieflings, gnomes, half-elves and half-orcs all fall into these categories because they are either slow to reproduce, have insular communities, and/or are the products of cross-racial pairings.
Rare. Rare races are notably uncommon in most locations, even cities. They either usually avoid settlements or have very low birth rates, or are otherwise unlikely to appear outside of their own cultural locales.
Outsider. Outsiders differ from rare races in that they have an actively antagonistic relationship with most other races. Goblins, kobolds, drow, and orcs find themselves here - not rare necessarily in population, but in their likelihood of being found in a populated area.
Exotic. Exotic races are defined most commonly by a necessity of some extra-planar influence to exist in most settings, or otherwise are just exceptionally unusual.
Adjusting Tables
These tables take a very broad look at the races of D&D, and in a setting where all of these races exist, it may well be an ideal distribution of populations across relatively settled areas. But these tables are most certainly not tailored to most settings. Thus, it will likely be necessary to adjust the tables to suit your needs. The simplest way to do this is to move, add, or remove the races or even rarity categories as you deem appropriate. Be sure to keep subraces separate unless they don’t exist in your setting.
If you want a relatively even spread of races within a given rarity, follow this method:
Take the new number of races in a given category and divide 100 by it, rounding down if necessary to reach a whole number.
Assign this number to each race in your new list, dividing it evenly amongst subraces. (For example, if your new number is 6, you would assign a 3 to Wood Elves and High Elves individually, giving Elves collectively a 6 on your table, assuming there were no other Elvin subraces in that rarity. If your number doesn’t divide evenly amongst your subraces, either make some subraces more common than others, or choose a lower number equally divisible amongst them).
Once you’ve assigned these first-pass numbers add them all together. You should get a number below 100. The next step is to simply add 1 to a number of races, favoring the ones more common than others first, until your total assigned value reaches 100.
It is also an option to assign some races higher or lower numbers based on how common they are in your setting (for example, in the pre-made table below, humans are twice as common as elves, dwarves, and halflings). These are numbers you will need to figure out for yourself, but shouldn’t be too difficult if you use the above method first and then adjust them afterwards to suit your needs.
Generating Number Ranges Quickly
The number assigned to each race when making your own adjusted tables is the odds out of 100 that you will roll that race. Each number will correspond to a roll of a d100, and a quick way to generate these ranges is to define the first one, such as 1 through 10, then add the next race’s value to the previous range’s largest value. That will be the largest value in the range of your second race. The lowest value is, naturally, that same value plus 1. Repeat this process until you reach 100 for your last entry.
Racial Rarity
d100 Rarity
01–50 Common
51–75 Uncommon
76–85 Rare
86–95 Outsider
96–99 Exotic
00 DM's Choice
Common Race Table
d100 Race
01–40 Human
41–50 Elf (high)
51–60 Elf (wood)
61–70 Dwarf (hill)
71–80 Dwarf (mountain)
81–90 Halfling (lightfoot)
91–00 Halfling (stout)
Uncommon Race Table
d100 Race
01–08 Dragonborn
09–16 Dragonborn (draconblood)
17–24 Dragonborn (ravenite)
25–36 Gnome (rock)
37–48 Gnome (forest)
49–64 Half-elf
65–80 Half-orc
81–82 Tiefling (Asmodeus)
83–84 Tiefling (Baalzebul)
85–86 Tiefling (Dispater)
87–88 Tiefling (Fierna)
89–90 Tiefling (Glasya)
91–92 Tiefling (Levistus)
93–94 Tiefling (Mammon)
95–96 Tiefling (Mephistopheles)
97–98 Tiefling (Zariel)
99–00 Tiefling (Feral)
Rare Race Table
d100 Race
01–06 Aaracockra
07–09 Elf (pallid)
10–12 Elf (sea)
13–18 Gnome (svirfneblin)
19–24 Goliath
25–27 Halfling (lotusden)
28–30 Halfling (ghostwise)
31–36 Kalashtar
37–42 Kenku
43–48 Leonin
49–54 Loxodon
55–60 Satyr
61 Shifter (Beasthide)
62 Shifter (Longtooth)
63 Shifter (Swiftstride)
64 Shifter (Wildhunt)
65–70 Tabaxi
71–76 Tortle
77–82 Triton
83–88 Vedalken
89–94 Verdan
95–00 Warforged
Outsider Race Table
d100 Race
01–09 Bugbear
10–17 Centaur
18–25 Dwarf (duergar)
26–33 Elf (drow)
34–41 Firbolg
42–50 Goblin
51–59 Hobgoblin
60–68 Kobold
69–76 Lizardfolk
77–84 Minotaur
85–92 Orc
93–00 Yuan-ti pureblood
Exotic Race Table
d100 Race
01–08 Aasimar (protector)
09–16 Aasimar (scourge)
17–24 Aasimar (fallen)
25–36 Elf (eladrin)
37–48 Elf (shadar-kai)
49–54 Genasi (air)
55–60 Genasi (earth
61–66 Genasi (fire)
67–72 Genasi (water)
73–84 Gith (githyanki)
85–96 Gith (githzerai)
97–00 Simic hybrid
Age is But a Number
Xanathar’s Guide to Everything calculates adventurer age
based on years alive. While this is intuitive, it somewhat
ignores the wide potential of age ranges for races like elves,
dwarves, and gnomes. In order to somewhat abstract the idea
of age, this simple table gives you a range of broad age
categories, from young adults having just reached maturity, to
mature well seasoned souls and even greying elders, with a
slight bias towards youth - since people have this annoying
tendency of being more likely to die the older they are.
Age Table
d10 Age
1–3 Young adult
4–7 Adult
8–9 Mature
0 Elder
Neutrality is Boring
The table for generating NPC alignment in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything has a drastic bias in favor of true neutral and neutral good alignments somewhere nearing 50% of rolls. While possibly realistic, this also naturally results in a glut of ideological NPCs that makes randomly generating them lose some of its charm. The system here is for more interesting NPCs - or even players - to randomly determine alignments with less drastically skewed results that still favor neutral- lawful/good-chaotic/evil in that order.
Alignment Table
d6 Alignment d6 Alignment
1 Chaotic 1 Evil
2–4 Neutral 2–4 Neutral
5–6 Lawful 5–6 Good
It Takes All Kinds
This table is used to determine a character’s gender and whether or not they deviate from the majority norms of the populace using a single d20 and a conditional d10 roll.
A roll of the d20 determines gender - evens for female, odds for male - and if the roll is 19 or 20, something about that character is queer. Namely, they deviate from societal norms in some way regarding their gender identity or romantic interests. The table below lists nine different ways one might be queer, though many other options exist.
This table presumes an even or near even split of gender within a given setting and that about 10% of the population deviate from societal norms. If any of these assumptions are not true for your setting, make sure you adjust these tables accordingly. (For example, if the vast majority of people in your setting are asexual, it may be a good idea to replace that entry on the Queer Table with ‘Heterosexual’ or some other unconventional quality.)
Queerness Table
d20 Queerness
01–18 Not Queer
19–20 Queer
d10 Queer Trait
1 Asexual
2 Homosexual
3 Bisexual
4 Transgender
5 Non-binary
6 Genderfluid
7 Agender
8 Intersex
9 Polyamorous
0 Roll twice take both